Sunday 21 February 2016

These Childish Things

 I was taking Henry (Hoover) for a walk round the house the other day, when in the middle of sucking up liberated risotto rice that had tried to hide themselves under the ragrug. I caught site of my Very Hungry Caterpillar biscuit barrel, and for once the first thought that struck me wasn't 'custard cream!', but 'I can remember when I used to pretend to read that book to my mum'.


 Of course I couldn't read the words (I was four!), I was just making up the story from the pictures while throwing in the odd remembered phases: 'On Thursday he ate through four strawberries....'. I bought the biscuit barrel because 1- I love Eric Carle's illustration (children's illustrations are something I have a strange obsession over) and 2- it made me nostalgic. 

 With this in mind I carried on exercising Henry and was quite astounded by how much child paraphernalia me and my boyfriend have in a childless house:






 Why do we seek out these 'toys'? 

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up"

C.S. Lewis

 I'm twentysix years old, my boyfriend is thirtythree..... we will always be this way. We have a very childish sense of humour, our house is full of 'toys' and bright primary colours. We wear clothes with Lego people on them, we have the occasional nerf gun battle to the death (or until one of us breaks something) and we watch children's films (just last night we watched Pan.... we loved the Smells Like Teen Spirit number by all the kids and Hugh Jackman). We are in touch with our childish side, which is perhaps why we don't quite 'fit' into society. Because the majority of society are afraid of making themselves look like idiots. They feel awkward making silly voices or sounds in public to delight children, they become self conscious when doing a ridiculous dance in front of others to make a child laugh and the thought of actually joining a child when they are in the midst of their fantastic game of 'hide from the trex under the table and throw teddy bears at it' makes them cringe. 

WHY?!?

 Because sometimes us Brits are just too bloody English. We are self conscious and really struggle to let ourselves go (without the aid of alcohol!). We don't like to expose our silly side for fear of being judged as inappropriate. 

"Sometimes grown ups are really boring."

A five year old patient of mine when the Doctor told him he didn't know what colour Fireman Sam's underpants were...... they're blue with penguins on, if you were interested!

 Please note that while I said the 'majority' of society, I do not mean you. You are not a boring grown up. You are the Roald Dahl of grown ups:


 Above is another find in our house, our bookshelf to be precise. The Sleepy Dormouse was a favourite book of mine when I was little, purely because I liked the pictures. The Vicar of Nibbleswicke was my boyfriends. He gleefully presented this to me the other day having found it over the Farm House. This book means alot to him. I won't go into detail why as that's very personal to him, but let's just say that if your child struggles at school or has Dyslexia (like my boyfriend and I) get them this book...... please.


 I leave you with my 24th Birthday present from my wonderfully immature boyfriend, the Naughty Boy lamp...... don't pretend you didn't smirk ;)


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